Calliope
by Cedarsong
Summary: Mad Scientist Allen has a voice in his head, and it is steadily gaining more influence. But he's alright with being a little bit mad.  Because the anachronism-Steampunk connection just needed to be done one of these days. AU.
1. Prologue: Brittlebright and Broken

Ain't my universe. Warning for swears and gore.

August 14, 2011- Last edit, swear. Had a horrible out-of-character prologue in Allen's point-of-view up before, but hopefully the horribleness is fixed. Cross seemed like the better point-of-view. Prologue based on chapter 206 of the manga. Hopefully anyone who encounters this will enjoy it somewhat.

This should be a Steampunk alternate universe, worked on sporadically, for my own enjoyment. I do not believe in last minute power-ups, supremely powerful main characters (or villains, for that matter) and miraculous recoveries. You may figuratively smack me if you find I am doing such things. Humans are fragile, and I hope to write realistic injuries, and portray the fact the Order is sending children out to war.

Though I really don't care how many people read this, it would be nice to give me a heads up if you encounter any out-of-character moments, failures of logic, incorrect facts, or just plain bad writing. I won't snap atcha for telling me I'm wrong.

More to come. -R

* * *

><p>Cross Marian wakes panicked, from the kind of dreamless sleep born of exhaustion. He doesn't remember where he is, at first, but the comforting weight of Judgment hangs at his leg. The dark room is soft and out of focus, and the veins in his eyes pulsate, warping familiar shapes into towering shadows.<p>

The thunder roars, altogether too similar to cannons for his liking.

Blinking, he nearly smacks himself in the face with a numb hand attempting to locate his glasses. A quilt, in the Lady of the house's signature technicolor, slips off his shoulders. The lamps are cold, the house silent, except for the rattle of the rain on the roof. He'd fallen asleep at her table, leaving what looks like a half-full glass of red wine. No doubt one of many. So that's why he feels so... disjointed? Discombobulated? Disoriented? He's still slightly drunk. Cross rubs at his face. His mask has left a red welt on his cheek and the flesh tingles as blood moves back into it. Timcampy perches silently on the other end of the table, sleepily regarding him without eyes. Cross moves to rise and the inside of his head goes round in circles. He walks to the window and lighting flash casts the shadows of raindrops on his shirt. Still deep night, with a cloud-heavy sky and no hint of dawn on the horizon.

He can't go back to sleep. Adrenaline still tightens his chest and feeds his muscles. He wants a cigarette, but Timcampy ate his tobacco days ago. He wants another drink, but his head is aching. He want to go wandering, find out what kind of nightlife this dinky valley can offer, and flirt with the local beauties.

Thanks to Mana's brat, he hasn't left this house in days. Swollen wounds, screaming convulsions, wet beds. Won't speak, won't eat, won't move. An uphill battle to keep him alive.

The thunder comes again, pressing and pressing and pressing on his eardrums.

The hairs on the back of Cross' neck stand upright. The air is charged. Electricity practically arcs between his fingertips, and his nose is stinging with the smell of metal. The atmosphere is foreboding, and he drops his hand to Judgment. A sound lurks at the very edge of his hearing.

Something reaches inside his skull and _squeezes_. His limbs are burning, even as his chest cools and heart slows. His mind flinches in on itself, compressing to a point, and his vision sloshes from one temple to another. There isn't enough room for his thoughts against the monstrous presence curling around his brainstem.

Stumbling, barely upright, Cross feels along the hall to Allen's room. Applying a foot to the wood takes care of the chair jammed under the handle and sends the door careening into the wall. The stomach-turning sweetness of metal and old blood hits him full in the face.

Over the all-consuming thunder, Cross can hear the Musician singing inside his head.

_the gasping flames within the ashes _

"Cross. It's good to finally meet you again after all these years," the voice rasps warmly. It would be musical if it hadn't been ruined from screaming.

Allen's face isn't his anymore. His skin is gray-green, the pigmentation writhing slightly under the surface. His head is bandaged, but there is no doubt in Cross' mind that under the cloth, seven stigmata have cut their way into his flesh. The visible eye pierces through the haze of alcohol and panic and _one by one rise up and expand into that beloved face _the sound of the song bearing down on his mind. Allen's mouth tilts up into a small smile, but the golden gaze pins him and he is looking into an eternity of overlapping consciousnesses and insanity. Cross tries to force words- a greeting, a plea, an accusation, _anything_- but he is held mute. Nea laughs, blinks, and the connection is broken.

The rest of the room snaps back into focus, and Cross hold back the retch. Nea is painted in rivulets of blood. The bedclothes are soaked, the psychedelic quilt dyed a blotchy red, the pyjamas pasted to Allen's body. Nea holds a knife loosely in Allen's right hand, and pulls Allen's mouth into a manic grin. The craggy surface of Allen's Innocence is sliced raggedly near his upper arm. A tracery of cracks wind themselves up his shoulder, and droplets slither down the wrinkled red flesh. His left hand is palm-up, limp.

"We were going for fully severed, but he actually has bones under there, you know," Nea shrugs, waving the little knife airily and slinging blood from its point.

"On, Abata, Ura..." Cross breathes, and loses himself in the syllables of sorcery, weaving a stasis around Allen's body. The pressure of the Musician's power keeps it from taking, and the filaments of light hang stretched near to breaking in the air. The rain is swallowed up under the noise of the song in his head. Allen's blood trickles on.

"Don't worry, don't _worry_, Cross, it'll be fine. I wasn't doing this against his will. I'm not strong enough to do anything against his will, yet. Though that will change, with the Innocence out of the way. I'll be waking up soon, Cross." Nea drops the knife and seizes his arm, adopting a pleading tone.

"He was _hurting_. Hurting so much our minds were almost the _same shape_. He could finally _hear_ me. We had a little talk, my nephew and I." The mood is gone, blown away by fury, looking so wrong on a face still lined with baby fat.

"_It killed Mana._ This Holy _parasite,_" he spits. "Draining his _life_ under the guise of a 'gift' from God. We both wanted it gone. Can't you see? Don't you _see_, Cross?" Nea's grip tightens to the point of pain.

"_I gave him a future._"

Nea leans forward, gaze boring into Cross' mind, whispering with all the deranged sincerity he can muster-

"I love him."

The golden eye rolls back in his head. With a twang, the stasis sorcery binds itself to him, and Allen crumples to the bedspread.

Well.

_Fuck._


	2. One: Future Scabbed Shut

I've known people like Komui...

Heard from somewhere Reever was called in from the Middle Eastern Branch to take over the science division when Komui was promoted to Branch Head. Also, policy of human experimentation ended when Komui took over. (Recently existed in the time this story takes place.)

Parasitic Innocence's regeneration coming from Allen's bizarre healing powers in the manga, and the fact Komui seems to fix it with a freakin' drill. Not affected by Earth-born objects from one bit in volume four where Allen stops an _axe_ with his _arm_.

It's hard for me to figure out an accurate timeline for when any character showed up at the Order, so this is an approximation: Lenalee was at the Order for three years before Komui showed up, Komui isn't Branch Head, Lenalee is only now getting training because Komui arrived and they could release her from her restraints without her attempting suicide, Mana is newly dead, Allen newly cursed. Kanda is very young. (Not sure what is going on with his growth rate vs. age in years) Human experimentation was only recently outlawed.

I'm not quite sure of this chapter, it seems a little too rushed and exposition-y, but I have so many other, better, chapters planned. I needed to get this up on the 'net, step away, and remind myself that I'm doing this for fun, before my head asploded. All I can fixate on are the flaws.

Thank you to Van-Luviche Onette and Badee Badaa Doo, for taking time to drop me a line or three. Thanks to the people who favorited. And though it may seem bizarre, thanks to all the authors out there those that refuse to see their own mistakes, and the authors that simply don't care. I now know what _not_ to do. Hopefully.

**If any of you want me to post (in a separate document) the earlier versions of the prologue that were up, I still have them saved, so drop me a line, even thought they aren't all that good.**

Warning for cussin', gore, and squirrely politics.

More to come. -R

* * *

><p>Tinny humming is echoing throughout the science department's basement. The gleeful source, Komui Lee, is flat on his back, hip-deep in the carcass of one of his Komlins. The robot's chest cavity has been acting as an echo chamber all day, and the man's odd, off-key sense of what proper music consists of is driving the interns mad. To keep it grease-free, he's perched his beret at a jaunty angle on his creation's metal skull. The more aggravated or foolhardy have been miming kicks at the robot's smug face every time his pitch rises to dog-calling.<p>

Komui, on the other hand, is barely conscious of making any noise at all. Visions of schematics are dancing blearily in his head, and grime has already worked its way into the lines of his palms. Riding the crest of a sleep-deprived caffeine-high, he clamps a screwdriver between his teeth and starts unspooling copper cabling.

Connect _here_ to that _there,_ and the power cable to this limb should be fairly secure- where are my wire-cutters? Ah, _there _we are, and link _this_ up...

O wait, the joint needs to bend _this_ way, dammit, that was a **stupid** mistake, this wire should go on the _other_ side...

Clearly, I need more coffee. Food of the gods!

He twists to start wriggling himself out around wiring and spurs of metal, with the occasional discarded tool jamming into his spine. Mixing up which direction the joint bends smacks of the all-nighter he pulled finally catching up with him, and that will simply _not do_.

He's been so out of focus in the past that he nearly walled himself into an earlier model of Komlin- what an embarrassment that was! Lenalee wouldn't stop giggling at him for _days_- and so he takes great precaution to practice safe robotics. Namely, loading up on stimulants while building short on sleep. Though he never remembers to do so when it's time to tell the carefully crafted shells exactly what they're supposed to be _doing_. He's always been a little prone to losing his train of thought while programing- who can _blame_ him? His computer chair is just so _comfy_, he drifts off, it's not as if he _plans_ to make his machines go haywire just to spite them, _honestly_.

New rule: no coding after midnight, if at all possible. Well... three in the morning, say, or the whole night's wasted.

O, dammit.

The humming cuts off abruptly. He's somehow managed to wedge one elbow behind the battery and another perpendicular to the chest plate, bending his left wrist at an odd angle. His boot heels scrabble at the floor, but he can't figure out how to unbend himself. Stuck in a Komlin- _again_. The chemistry group will laugh themselves absolutely _sick_.

Before he can ponder the problem further, footsteps ring loudly on the concrete floor. They are brisk and measured and obviously unused to moving around down here where everything echoes. They _sound_ prim. He can't see them, but that rules out more than half his department.

"Komui Lee?" Female voice. He doesn't recognise it as science personnel.

"A little busy here!" His voice is forced-jovial and rather full of phlegm from all this dust and - O, okay, ow, moving his wrist that way _hurts_.

A dainty hand seizes his ankle and _yanks_. After a rapid series of highly interesting and rather nauseating pops from his joints, Komui is dragged backwards flat on his belly.

He curses, not exactly sure what language he used, and rolls to his knees. His left wrist is throbbing, with little tendrils of pain skittering around inside his veins. He shoves his glasses back up his nose with his good hand and starched white robes jump into focus. O, okay, medical personnel... medical?

Komui is on his feet in an instant, all business despite shedding layers of dust from his work clothes.

"What is it?" He asks; yanking a piece of red wire from his hair before pocketing it- it's probably important.

"Follow me, I'll explain to you on the way to the infirmary," she says, and takes off striding, all proper posture and needlelike focus. He's trotting to keep up, though she is obviously unfamiliar with the labyrinthine network of tunnels that is the science department's basement.

"We have a severely injured unknown accommodator in our infirmary, with a deep gash in his upper arm, and we require your expertise in treating parasitic Innocence. The wound is deep enough to damage the matrix of the original flesh that the Innocence has grafted itself to. It is practically an exoskeleton, and the skin behaves as through it were ceramic." Pausing, she pins Komui with a gimlet stare.

"The Head Nurse is trying to suture the wound and the skin is _bending her needles_. We were hoping you would have some sort of explanation?"

"I'll have to see myself, I think." Komui absently slaps at the light switch, for the individual who hasn't spent most of her life running around underground and staring at screens in the pitch-dark. In the stronger light, he can see spatters along her forearms.

"I may have to stop by one of my labs for equipment, and the proper sets of drugs. Which room is he in?"

"The main operating room. Do you need any help carrying anything?"

"No! No, that's alright. I'll meet you there," he calls over his shoulder and takes off at a run to his labs.

* * *

><p>Komui shoulders open the door to the infirmary and winces as some unidentifiable sharp object from the bundle of tiny phials and various tools bites into his wrist. He staggers to the table and dumps them unceremoniously into a heap, next to the... unconscious body...<p>

O God.

He's done this before, sure, but Lau Jimin needs more of a veterinarian than anything and Suman is so _sturdy_, and he's never gotten hurt_ this badly_ before, and the boy on the table is so small and delicate and bloody and he may or may not be nearly hyperventilating _just a teensy bit_.

Ow?

The Head Nurse has seized him by the ear and swung his face around to meet her eyes.

"**Komui Lee**." Now if that's not the intent to do harm on the air, he doesn't know what is. He sobers up, latches his ribs around his lungs, and gains back his balance.

"R-right. Do you have any gloves?" He yanks his dust-encrusted hair tie back into place. After getting his hair caught around a washer in one of his earlier forays into the field, he makes a habit of having a bit of string on his person for the express purpose of not losing giant chunks of dead cells to smarmy robots. Now it will be repurposed so his hair doesn't get into open wounds...

No time for that! Lose your nerve later.

The slice is still oozing slightly, chips of armor plating pasted with blood to glistening muscle tissue. Pools of fluids on the polished metal table reflect the overhead light. A nurse is busy with forceps, picking graying fragments out of the flesh and depositing them in a small glass dish.

The edges of the break are still sharp. The flesh underneath the Innocence will require stitches, but with a Parasite type there should be some sort of regeneration around the plates. He sees no evidence of new growth. The light of the cross in the small hand is barely there.

"I'll need the gash underneath repaired before I can do anything. Don't worry about the armor just yet. The sutures will need to be catgut, I think, not silk. Something absorbable, because I'm not sure if you can get through the plating to remove them after this," he says. His voice shakes. A nurse hands him a tray with gloves, and he sweeps his tools onto it. Holding it carefully so the little bottles don't roll onto the tile and break, he collapses into a chair out of the way of those who actually know what they're doing. Komui balances it on his lap and then, only then, does he notice the bedraggled mountain of a man he's seated himself next to.

Soaking wet from the thunderstorm raging outside, and looking rather like something the cat dragged in, is General Cross Marian. The general is not as imposing under the harsh light. Washed out.

Cross' visible eye rolls toward him, peering through the sopping curtain of hair. No doubt taking in the smears of dust and grease. He probably saw the panic attack, too.

"Um," Komui says intelligently, and busies himself with putting on the gloves, cheeks burning. Cross glances down at the tray.

"How, exactly, do you expect to save the brat's arm with a... drill?" Disbelief and scorn. Komui chooses to ignore it, partly enthused as always to talk about any aspect of his work and mostly jumping on a welcome distraction. The General's one-eyed gaze is eerie and the awkward silence between them is filled with the noise of nurses.

"Well! That's usually very simple, actually. It's not a drill, really, it's more of a file, I suppose. It's to grind away the surface of Parasitic Innocence to promote growth in the correct shape, because any damage usually heals in strange shapes on the way in from the field." He takes one hand from the tray to sketch incomprehensible jittering motions in the air.

"The flesh works itself into very hard, raised lumps because it just produces too many cells. Sort of like a cancer? No, more like a bone that doesn't heal right on it's own, I think, or moulding self-replicating clay," Komui babbles, leaning towards Cross with a nervously manic look in his eye. Cross leans back, eyeing the dust bunnies clinging to his ponytail with revulsion. Unperturbed, Komui starts righting the phials and lining them up in some unidentifiable order.

"The drugs are to supercharge, and then shut off growth, so the Innocence will cover the proper surface area, and then no more than that," he says as he holds a particularly unnatural blue up to the light, and then presents it to Cross for inspection. No comment is made. Komui's manner abruptly becomes grave again.

"That one's to purge minute traces of Dark Matter from the flesh," he tells Cross quietly. "It doesn't work on the Akuma virus, of course, but if any wound was caused by an Akuma's claw, this prevents bad infections. I haven't got it quite right yet, so I don't want to use it unnecessarily. Will I need it? What exactly caused that?" He makes a vague gesture in the direction of the table.

Moving for the first time in many minutes, Cross rustles in an inner pocket of his coat and lays a folding knife down on the tray. The blade is caked with the sickly-sweet smelling black of old blood.

"Shit. Steel. That shouldn't be possible," he tells the general with a distracted, faintly reprimanding tone. "You _can't damage_ Innocence with Earth-born objects. Either it tears itself apart with strain, or another Innocence breaks it, or Dark Matter corrodes it. It shouldn't _do_ that."

"Obviously, it did. **Why?**" He turns the full force of his glare towards Komui.

Holding the knife delicately in gloved fingers, Komui meets his eye.

"That's both complicated and extremely simple. That boy on the table, the accommodator..._ he wanted it to._"

* * *

><p>Komui shoves his glasses up his face with the back of one wrist. It leaves a gaudy streak across his cheek. He grimaces, peels the gloves off, and flings them down onto the tray. He wants a long bath, and then he wants to pass out quietly in a corner. But most of all, he wants answers.<p>

The boy- Allen, Cross said he was called Allen- is lying unclothed and whole under white sheets. Red scars, red arm, red blood. White hair, white skin, white bandages. God, even his eyelashes are devoid of pigment.

Komui bends down to collect the scattered bottles, ducking around nurses slopping down the operating table with suds and disinfectant. He didn't even need the drug to kill the growth, because there _was_ no excess growth. He had to saturate the boy's bloodstream just to get any sort of response out of the Innocence. He wonders if Allen will wake up, what the negative effects are, if any. He wonders if he did right. Komui rolls the bottles in his palm, listens to their chiming. Too many, surely, for one small, light boy, with no meat on his bones. His pulse and breathing are both slow, and there is an IV in his right arm replenishing lost fluids.

He will wake.

Komui will not let himself believe otherwise.

A shadow looms in the doorway. It is the general, dried off and missing his jacket, and already smelling heavily of wine. He crosses the room without a glance at Komui, and sinks down in his vacated chair.

"Well?" Cross remarks to a point in the middle distance.

"_Well what?_" Komui snaps, perhaps unwisely. This is a general, who can maim you with a twitch of his finger, who is already proven to have a temper, and you are small and filthy and covered with the blood of a child with some association to him- and Komui _just doesn't care_. He wants to sleep. He wants answers. He wants... something. Coffee. Coffee would be nice. The special occasion blend. He thinks he deserves it, after tonight. Well, technically morning, if his eyes don't deceive, and the sky outside the window is turning purple in reality as well.

"Will he be an Exorcist after this?" Not 'will he survive.' It's scary, a little, to have someone have that sort of faith in you. Or the knowledge that you'd be _so very easy_ to kill if Allen dies. The bottles chime in his palms, the glass already smeared with grease. Too many.

"I- I think I'll have to ask Hevlaska, once he wakes. I just don't know. There's too much damage to the muscle, and the Innocence is acting... I've never seen it do this before. He's not a Fallen, but… There's no energy left in it, it was _fighting_ me every step of the way. Cross," he peers over his glasses, fixing the back of the man's head with his stare. "What happened?"

"He tried to cut it off, _he_ said. I didn't see. He was nearly catatonic before this. No one thought he'd do anything. I'm not his minder." Too much calm indifference to be natural for someone this drunk. Disjointed. Forced. Is he explaining away the blame? How deep in his glass is he? Or rather, how many bottles has he had?

"_Self-inflicted?_ Why?" Komui can barely keep his voice steady.

"Mana," he says, and says no more, staring down past the surface of his wine, like he could see the future. Or the past.

"Right," Komui says gently. "I'm leaving you to whatever you're thinking, and getting a shower. Don't spill anything on the sheets, or the nurses will murder you in cold blood." A growl. Komui retreats, and shuts the door softly on his way out.

* * *

><p>Damp, scrubbed until his skin turned pink, and hastily dressed in spare pajamas, Komui hoists himself up onto an empty bed and stares at the red streaks on the horizon. The fuzzy light of the world outside matches the inside of his head. Two all-nighters in a row, and no coffee in hours. He swings his feet under the bed sleepily, and flexes his left wrist. None too bad. He'll have to finish Komlin's joints tomorrow. He's lost the flow of creativity utterly, and at this rate, Komlin'd end up with octopus tentacles in place of arms or something.<p>

Now there's an idea...

He flops back with his dripping, rat-tailed head hanging off the edge of the bed, watching blurred schematics swim behind his eyes. It would be so easy just to let himself fall into sleep, right here, but he wants to wait and see how things turn out. He can hear Allen's harsh breathing.

A soft rustle of cloth as Cross shifts. Even upside down, he looks dazed and half awake. Not really noticing Komui's presence. Komui can smell the alcohol from all the way over here. He fists his hands into the sheets and sighs. He should get coffee if he wants to stay awake, but he doesn't feel like moving, or going to the trouble of brewing it. Just snuggling into the sheets and letting the warmth seep into his bones. Maybe he could ask Lenalee to brew him some when she wakes up...

_Lenalee!_ She hasn't seen him all night! She must be so worried.

Komui flings himself upright, then staggers as his vision dissolves into splotchy color and blackness. There's a grunt as Cross jolts at the sudden movement and one hand disappears down to the holster on his leg.

"Woah, wai'aminit! Nrg," he slurs. The world is falling in beautifully choreographed arcs around his head, or maybe he's the one moving.

"K'mwi?" O, marvelous. They're both incomprehensible.

"Ah, sorry to startle. I remembered I wanted to check on Lenalee." He flexes his toes on the tile, already freezing.

"Let her sleep." Cross eases back into the chair. "She shouldn't see this sort of thing."

"I wasn't going to bring her here," Komui murmurs, feeling a bit foolish standing around barefoot and barely dressed.

"You. Like this, I mean. A sweet girl like her shouldn't worry." Cross' eye is drifting shut.

"Ah." He pads to the window, wondering if the general meant to say anything at all. The view is of cliffs and barren rocks and misty, desolate forest. It fits, somehow. He turns to face the rest of the room, aware that he may be the only one even semi-conscious at the moment.

For lack of anything more useful to do, he hunts down his pocket watch to takes Allen's pulse and time his breathing. Better, maybe. The boy's still so cold.

He sits again and stares at the ceiling. Too many little bottles, such a small child. His bleary mind can't fully comprehend the possibilities just yet, but it tastes each one and gives him a sense of the consequences. A tiny red-and-white corpse, or a vegetable mentally, or... damn it. All his fault. The nurses knew what they were doing. He didn't. He still doesn't.

The minutes wheel by, the light long and low and golden over the horizon. It glints off the brass bed frames and burns tiny, tiny spots into his retinas. Finally, Komui relents and lets his thoughts scatter. He lines the little bottles up on the bedside table, leans back and closes his eyes.

An hour later, the only sound the nurse making her rounds hears is the breathing from the three exhausted bodies of the four sleeping souls.


	3. Interlude: A Pox Like Stars

Just getting my feet back under me, writing wise. Apparently my mental health is not as hale and hearty as I thought it was, so apologies for the wicked long delay. Chapter two will be up in a week or so.

This is my thought on why the Rose Cross carries so much power in influencing people, but nobody knows what it is they DO exactly.

More to come.

-R

* * *

><p>Silence is an alien thing in the Order.<p>

It takes a figurative army of deliverymen, parts dealers, metallurgists, greengrocers, and butchers to keep the flow of food and supplies a torrent and not a trickle. A city is always two meals away from anarchy, and the castle on the rock is hungrier than most. Always, there comes the sound of boats and barges in the canal, footsteps in the hallways at all hours. Confused, frightened, awed voices, any time of night. You can hear them outside your door. Carpenters and masons to shore up the training rooms, maids to wipe away the traces of feet, and sweat, and blood. The headquarters of the Black Order is a small city, and it takes a small city of people to maintain it, as they have for generations.

Let alone ethical, it simply would not be cost effective to burn over minds and memories every time a shipment of flour comes in. How do you keep a secret that hundreds _have_ to know? How do you keep a secret from the world when the world walks in your front door and gawks as they set down crates of cabbage? You give them the _wrong secret_. The common folk are superstitious, aren't they? Tell them anything. We don't want to cause any witch-hunts. Heaven forbid any changes in the status quo. Just look sincere. Look powerful, and confident.

We fight a holy war. We are chosen by God, and nothing can withstand His power. You are safe, because we stand in the way of the demons. _Nothing will touch you_.

The truth is parceled out, anyway. Smuggled out. Traded and sold in bits and pieces, hidden like coins in a handshake.

Something to do with religion. Something to do with monsters. Fear the dark. Burn your loved ones and scatter the ashes.

The ones who walk these halls, with their faltering footsteps and low, rough voices, causing the rumbling of cartwheels at hours where all good men should be tucked away and sleeping soundly, they look at the shadows and fear. Metal men who get up and walk. A masked warrior, like a mad dog in a muzzle. Scientists who warp the fabric of the world and laugh. Red-robed sorcerers with masks and knives up their sleeves. These _things_ are on the side of God. These things are all that stands between life and something more terrible. The shadows rustle. The shadows move.

The white-robed assistants of God's chosen ones seize their arms, their shirtfronts, stand in front of their carts and ask desperately about the outside world, for any details they can't get from newspapers. There is the exchanging of money and letters to people left behind. Sometimes they are delivered. Sometimes they are tossed with the trash, and the silver disappears into deep and starving pockets. This is what happens to ordinary humans. They walk in, wild-eyed and bleeding. They've seen people break like rubies, they say. They've seen a pox like stars. They walk out wearing mourning whites and clutching talismans like every step may be over the edge of the universe, and the little glowing box is the only rope in the world.

The common folk walk the halls, do their jobs and cause their noise late at night, when the chosen ones of God are less likely to stumble upon them and contract an acute bout of homesickness. Even so, they have seen all these people. Bleeding wounds can't wait for sunrise. A lie may be nice and cozy on a dark day, but a picture is worth a thousand words, and victory and the grace of God is not what is written in the hollows of their eyes.

Secrets move like living things. Keeping them in is as useless as holding back the tide with your hands, and the Vatican makes a farce of it anyway. But the people know. Even the most illiterate can read the writing on the wall.

If anyone bearing the Rose Cross knocks at your door, _you let them in_. You listen carefully and politely. And you _run like hell_.

Nothing can be truly secret. And silence is an alien thing at the Order.


	4. Author's Note: Sorry

Right. So.

Realized I'd lost most of the fragments I wrote because I left them too long. Decided I'm not going to try to recreate them.

Thing is, looking back on this, it makes me **cringe**. My writing ability has advanced in the interum, but not enough to re-write it satisfactorily. There just wouldn't be as much of an improvement to justify the wrok. So, as of now, Calliope is **ON HOLD**.

I would like to finish it at some point, because it was the beloved brainchild of years past. I mean, I've got two full notebooks of writing and outlining and plot waffling. It pretty much got me through the first couple years of high school moderately sane. (Something to be said for escapism.)

Hell, I even know how it ends. That's pretty rare. But I think I'm going to mess around a bit with oneshots and character studies and other things first, give myself a little leeway in writing ability, and a larger manga buffer.

The characterization needs some retooling before I try again, too. The 14th was not at all how I expected. He's a little shouty dude! He's like Allen but menacing! I was expecting _dignity,_ and planned for such a thing, hell if I know why! I also need to work on my Cross. I read a perfect Cross and realized, hey, my Cross could be better than I have him!

I think I'm more interested in worldbuilding and a sad, doomed attempt to create a functional system of magic for this world than, y'know, plot and characterization. I like Explaining People Things. Not exactly a good method to tell a story.

So yeah. Sorry. If anyone wants to take a crack at this, feel free. Just let me know first.

-R


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